CHIPMAKERS
MediaTek revenue falls
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), which supplies mobile handset chips to China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) and Xiaomi Corp (小米), yesterday reported falling revenue for last month because of fewer working days and the effects of the slow season. Revenue declined 44.62 percent to NT$9.67 billion (US$307.5 million) last month, compared with NT$17.45 billion in January, MediaTek said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The figure was 38.52 percent lower than the previous year’s NT$15.73 billion, its lowest level in nearly two years. That brought the Hsinchu-based chipmaker’s revenue for the first two months to NT$27.13 billion, down 5.04 percent from NT$28.58 billion the previous year.
AUTOMAKERS
Yulon Nissan shares surge
Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), which distributes Nissan and Infiniti cars, yesterday saw its shares surge 5.45 percent to NT$300 after Yulon Group (裕隆集團) said on Thursday that it aimed to increase total annual sales by 12 percent this year to NT$400 billion. The group also said on Thursday that China would remain the world’s top market this year with sales of 25 million passenger cars, while Taiwan could see total new vehicle sales top 420,000. The group aims to sell more than 280,000 cars this year in both Taiwan and China, a company statement said.
CONGLOMERATES
Formosa Plastics’ sales drop
Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday said the combined revenue of its four major units decreased 28.8 percent year-on-year and 7.8 percent month-on-month to NT$111.38 billion last month. While Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) reported sales of NT$51.01 billion last month, up 2.9 percent from January amid rebounding crude oil prices, the other three units posted sliding sales due to lower utilization rates due to the Lunar New Year holiday. Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the group’s flagship company, reported the largest monthly decline in sales of 26 percent last month to NT$12.66 billion. It was followed by Nan Ya Plastics Corp’s (南亞塑膠) 14.7 percent decline to NT$23.32 billion and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp’s (台灣化學纖維) 9.5 percent decline to NT$24.4 billion last month.
LIGHTING
Epistar posts lower revenue
The nation’s largest LED chipmaker, Epistar Corp (晶元光電), yesterday reported monthly revenue of NT$1.86 billion (US$59.14 million) for last month, down 9.04 percent from the previous year’s NT$2.04 billion. Separately, Taiwan’s leading LED lighting and product supplier Everlight Electronics Co (億光電子), which is one of Epistar’s key customers, reported a 16.8 percent annual growth in sales to NT$2.2 billion last month. On a monthly basis, Epistar and Everlight posted sales declines of 22.82 percent and 13.38 percent respectively. In the first two months of this year, Epistar’s revenue totaled NT$4.28 billion, up 8.69 percent from the previous year, while Everlight’s revenue jumped 18.76 percent to NT$4.74 billion.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Nation’s reserves rise
The nation’s reserves amounted to US$417.83 billion as of the end of last month, an increase of US$1.92 billion from the previous month, the central bank said on Thursday. In a statement posted on its Web site, the bank attributed the increase to returns from the management of the reserves and the appreciation of the euro and other reserve currencies against the US dollar.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by